The Tin Man and the Viper
by Leighton Harper
Summary: AU Post Civil War Steve Rogers returns from Wakanda with a partially repaired Bucky Barnes to the Avengers compound. Excited to introduce his first best friend to his BFF of the 21st century (OC), he's shocked to discover that a deep change has occurred in her from when they were last united. Bucky's never been one for puzzles but finds some solace in her mysterious silence.
1. Chapter 1

Bucky's POV

"Wait until you meet her Buck, she's so much like her old man it's uncanny," Steve says as he drags me through the Avenger's compound looking for her. "She's quiet around strangers, I'll tell you right now, but once she warms up to you…well I think you'll really appreciate her sense of humor."

I nod absentmindedly from Steve's side, thinking about the picture on of his wall of himself and her decked out in Brooklyn and LA Dodgers outfit. Steve said that she had bought them the outfits, hers the modern version, and taken them to the LA Dodgers vs. New York Mets game for his birthday shortly before the accords. Her long dark hair had been tucked behind her ears, with golden eyes sparkling underneath her LA cap worn backwards. She looked taller, Steve's arm wrapped around her ribs, and she held a firecracker popsicle in her fingers. Steve smiled widely whereas she, closed lipped and demure, but happy. When trouble began stirring, she was called away for emergency business with the X-Men and disappeared, assumed to be in hiding when war broke out and in the aftermath. Steve brought her up often while I recovered in Wakanda, however I can't help but wonder why she wouldn't have fought by his side in war if they'd been so close. I don't blame her for not protecting me, but that doesn't stop me from wondering. Her grandfather Jacques Dernier was no coward.

"Pietro!" Steve calls upon spotting the silver haired speedster leaving the gym. He waves at us and pauses as we approach him.

"Hey Piet, this is Bucky. Buck, you re-met his sister Wanda at breakfast." I nod at Steve as Pietro looks on warily but forcing a small smile. "Have you seen Stella around lately? I sort of expected to see you two attached at the hip," Steve says.

Pietro swallows a gulp of water from his plastic bottle thickly. "We are not uh—well we are not really together anymore. We do not talk."

Steve furrows his eyebrows, the surprise and confusion evident on his face. "Tony said she'd just gotten back a few weeks ago, how'd you manage to screw up that quickly?"

"Is that all Stark said about her? She is different now. Something changed."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Perhaps she will talk to you. Your friend," Pietro tips his bottle in my direction, "he seems to be the silent, brooding type. Perhaps that is more her speed now," he says, growing more agitated as he speaks. I scoff impolitely, but the kid's being just as rude. "I do not know what to do with her anymore," he says lowly before turning back away from the gym.

"Wait—" Steve tries to recapture his attention but it was too late and we watch as wisps for silvery blue energy lay in Pietro's wake. "Well that was weird. He probably just did something stupid that made her mad. Remember how bad I was with girls back in the day? He's like that, but completely unapologetic." Steve says reaching to rub the back of his head. "She's a bit like Peggy in the way that she'd probably shoot at him if he made her jealous or something too." I raise an eyebrow at Steve in response, thinking she sure sounds like a real gem. As if he can read my mind he tries to reassure me, "you'll love her, I promise. We've just gotta get ahold of her…"

We spend the rest of the late morning and midday roving around the compound looking for Stella high and low. You know how he gets when he's all determined. Steve checked all of her regular spots ranging from her bedroom to the research center when he decided we should grab a late lunch in the main kitchen. The Wakandan psychologist that I worked most closely with had stressed to Steve how important developing and keeping with a scheduled routine would be before getting me ready for the field again and since then he's been a mother fucking hen. We'd slept a few hours after arriving back at the compound in the dead of the night before getting an early start in the gym. Then we went to the private kitchen that the Avengers shared for breakfast before embarking on their private search mission. Steve considered taking me to the public cafeteria now, but decided that I might appreciate a less populated area after all of the introductions and reintroductions I'd been forced into today. Not that I had been terribly social, I can acknowledge that I'd merely hung back behind Steve and nodded along absentmindedly with the conversations that he participated in.

That's how we've finally stumbled across Stella, preparing something on the stove with her back towards the entrance of kitchen. Pietro's sitting at the kitchen's central island with a glass of water in his hands watching her intently instead of eating the meal plated before him. Guess the brat didn't bother sending Steve the message that he'd found her. His blue eyes are dark and so focused that he only looked up as Steve cleared his throat, catching both of their attentions. Steve grinns largely when two blank yellow eyes train on him. "Long time no see, kid!"

I observe the girl from over the back of Steve's shoulder. Pretty as the picture, that was for sure. But unlike the picture, Stella looks empty as hell. Her eyes are cold and distant the moment they set on Steve, but change gears nearly mechanically, glimmering with a new sense of familiarity. She smiles the same closed, pink lipped smile from the picture, but it fades when she looks over Steve and caught sight of me. She knitts her brown brows tightly and bit her cheek in pensively. Steve looks shocked, like he'd expected her to run majestically into her arms or somethin', and maybe he had but that sure wasn't what was he was getting today. He stirrs briefly in the silence before stepping aside and gesturing at me, "this is Bucky Barnes. The mythical man your grandfather once coined so affectionately 'The Fallen Glorious Bastard'." He chuckles awkwardly; he'd mentioned some of the things that had been said about me after the fall, probably in some attempt to make me feel like some kinda martyr instead of mass murdered. Instead of nodding, I stare at her staring at me. I bet she unnerved a lot of men this way, but two can play that game. Stoicism is my Winter Soldier specialty.

"Jesus Christ, Estella," the fast kid groans. "You are really going to do this to the Captain as well?"

She shoots him a nasty, glowering glare instantly, then turns back to the stove spooning what looks like ramen from the pot into a bowl she grabbed from nearby.

"Stella?" Steve asks quietly. He gets no response. Stella moves to put the pot in the sink, then takes a spoon out from random drawer. She moves to the fridge and stares in it for about fifteen seconds like she's trying to decide if she's thirsty as well but shuts it without taking anything out.

Picking the bowl back up she moves like she's going to walk pass us and leave Steve confused and pathetically devastated but before she can take a step Pietro is up and standing before her with his back towards us grabbing at her shoulders with both hands. "Estella!" he shouts angrily, and desperately I might add.

Before Steve can intervene I see the change in her eyes. The disgust she wears for the Sokovian flickers, and I can see the fear before drops the bowl, noodles going everywhere. Pietro swears letting go of her and she moves to cover her face before still silently bolting from the room. Steve makes to catch her but I pull him back. "I don't think she wants to talk to any of us," I mutter, not particularly in the mood to deal with a woman who must be seriously PMSing.

Steve adheres to my words but whips around angrily towards the boy who is pitifully staring at the shattered red ceramic on the floor. "What did you do to her, Maximoff?"

"Nothing! I did not do anything! Ask Tony, ask Wanda, ask anyone and if they tell the truth it will be nothing!"

"Wanda didn't mention anything a breakfast," Steve says.

"She does not like to talk about it. This silent treatment that Estella is giving us all makes her sad."

"She just came back like this, and no one bothered to find out what's actually going on with her?" Steve questions.

I shift uncomfortably in the doorway. It's my curiosity that keeps my feet planted and not going back to my room although that I know this discussion isn't any of my business and I definitely don't wanna get anymore involved in this.

Pietro sighs. "That is not completely true. The first week she was fine, it was as if nothing had changed at all. She worked with Stark in his lab, went shopping with Wanda, we did what he normally used to do…she even helped Rhodey in his physical therapy. Then the second week rolls around and she became ah—more reserved. Refuses projects that Stark requests her assistance with, withdraws from my sister, becomes distant with me, but it is only a little bit and Wanda says that I should not worry too much, that she is most likely readjusting to life after the accords. The accords and Civil War that she will not talk about by the way. Even my sister has forgiven me for siding with Stark, but I do not know what side Estella would have taken had she been here. She would not speak about her absence aside from asking when you would return—I think she only rejoined the Avengers because you were coming back. But by the third week she has snapped. We were in the bedroom and everything was fine. We are undressing each other, it is normal-" at this Steve is seethingly glaring daggers but Pietro quickly notices and stresses again that it wasn't his fault. "It is normal and mutual, I swear! And then all of the sudden she is shoving me off of her and screaming. It happens so quickly that not even I could catch it. I jump back alert and search the room for an intruder or someone in the window or something but she begins to throw things from her nightstand—books, the alarm clock, and she reaches for the lamp and I realize it is me she is screaming at. I get so panicked that all of the English sounds so muddled and I cannot understand why she is screaming and covering her eyes so I run from the room in only my boxers to find Wanda. By the time I arrive back with her, Stella has locked her door and will not respond. We ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. if she is okay and if she is alone and F.R.I.D.A.Y. confirms these things but that Stella will not respond. And Estella has never made a sound since then," Pietro finishes. Poor jerk, I think. He looks like he could start bawlin his eyes out at any moment and maybe he's slept as much as I have in the last few weeks.

"That doesn't make any sense," Steve finally says.

"That's one thing that hasn't gone and changed in the last 75 years, punk. Women don't ever make any good sense," I say quietly.

"Not Stella," Steve replies. "Stella has always made sense to me."


	2. Chapter 2

**Bucky's POV**

It's hard not to watch her spar, I'll give her that. Her movements are fluid and graceful—a young Natalia Romanova still learning. Romanoff is the only person she has allowed to train with her since her return. We sat down with the iron twat my first official night with the Avengers after our run in in the kitchen. Stark doesn't seem concerned, but it doesn't appear to be that whatever is happening with her is something the Avengers want to talk about aside from Steve. I myself don't see what the big deal is either, I mean pretty, mute, and a little neurotic to keep things interesting sounds like the about ideal dame to me.

I can see her perfectly from the weight bench sending high kicks right over Romanoff's head as she ducks gracefully out of Estella's way. Steve asked her this morning if she might want to get in the ring with us today as he bragged to her about me being a boxing champ back in the day, but she just smiled sweetly and shook her no.

Suddenly there's a blur of flesh obstructing my view, it belongs to Steve—I'm momentarily impressed with myself for knowing that without meeting his eyes or tuning into his voice. I peel my eyes from the dueling girls somewhat reluctantly, and grunt, "whadya want, Steve?"

"Stark called a team meeting," he replies.

"Isn't that your job?"

Steve scoffs. "I let him be second in command to coddle his delicate ego. He get his knickers in a twist since he, you know," he gestures at all the equipment surrounding us in the Tower's gym, "pays for all this stuff." I nod with a sense of understanding, but I don't recall Howard being so controlling. Of course things always change after war.

Steve is smirking at me and I briefly wonder if I've missed something. "What?"

"Should I get the girls or would you like to do the honors?"

"Punk," I mutter. I stand and toss my towel into my standard army issue duffle bag with no intent on saying anything to the assassin and the mute.

Steve chuckles. "Widow! Error! Meeting in the eighty-first floor conference room in fifteen minutes!"

They pause instantly for Romanoff to respond. "You want us to walk in there smelling like Maximoff's running shoes?"

I look up to see Estelle crack an out of place smile and wrinkle her nose slightly. It's almost cute. Almost.

"Apparently Stark has a fetish for stinky teammates."

I'd never heard anyone address Estelle as anything aside from that, or more affectionately as Stella. "Where does that codename come from?"

"Oh, Error? It's short for 'User Error'. When Stella was brought to the attention of the Avengers, it was because she hit Stark's radar as an alleged hacker. Her abilities include technology and electrical energy manipulation and she wreaked havoc on the Stark Enterprise servers to use his GPS to locate missing mutants on an X-Men mission. Normally the X-Men would avoid any interaction with the Avengers or other any government agencies for that matter, but it was an emergency and they thought with her abilities she'd be able to get in and out completely undetected. But the truth is, at the time Stella knew about as much about computers as I do."

"That doesn't make a whole lot of sense," I say, mostly because I don't know a damn thing about the X-Men. Steve mentioned them once or twice in Wakanda, but genetic mutations occurring in nature outside of Hydra reek of suspicious activity. It's hard for me to grasp that normal people are born this way, born like the twins. Steve said that there's genetic explanation to that too but it all goes right over my head. I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

"She grew up in the Swamps, Buck. It's not exactly like Silicon Valley." I have no idea where 'Silicon Valley' is, but apparently it's not the Everglades. We headed towards the exit of the gym after gathering our belongings whereas the girls bee lined towards the locker room. "She wasn't incredibly computer literate outside of the basics. She had raw ability and had just joined the X-Men to figure out how to use it. Long story short, she basically ended up triggering all these crazy alarms that Stark had installed in his systems as emergency contingency plans for incredibly advanced hackers. He said it should have been impossible for someone of her incompetency to bulldoze their way through the system like a digital bull in a china shop. At first he was mad, but he called me a soon as he discovered the identity of the girl."

"Granddaughter of a Howling Commando? How'd the Frenchy even end up in the states anyhow?"

"You don't happen to remember a nurse by the name of Gloria Sayre? Tiny little thing with a nice, slow southern drawl."

Doesn't ring a single bell. I shake my head from right to left.

"Well after you…were no longer in action...they got together. Funny thing is, she told him she was from New Orleans, the Paris of America," Steve says. He's got a glimmer of far away nostalgia in his eyes as we step into an elevator that will take us to the eighty-first floor. I nearly wish I was capable of remembering enough things to feel nostalgic about them, but instinct immediately screams that an unnecessary weakness and I brush my envy aside. "But as it turned out, old Gloria lived a few cities and one state away, in the swampland of Biloxi, Mississippi. I heard all this from Tony who said that Howard had written it in an old journal of his he started keeping at the end of the war when record keeping became an afforded luxury. Howard had written that Jacques was livid, but by the time they reached the south Gloria was already pregnant. Stella just about confirmed all of this when we finally met. I was fairly adamant about getting her on the team—a descendant of Jacques, a genetic modern marvel! Who could have imagined."

"So does that mean that Frenchy was…well was Frenchy a mutant too then, and he never told anyone? Was that why he was so good with explosions?" I ask, my brain beginning to run wild faster than common sense can catch up to it.

"Of course not, Buck. You spent all that time with him in the POW cells, I think you'd remember that."

 _Not likely,_ I think. We step out of the elevator and begin down a maze of hallways as Steve tries reassure me that Jacques was not a freak like his offspring.

"Mutation is a gene that can be dormant if possessed. Jacques could've had it and never known, or Gloria, or more likely it came from Arthur Sinclair's line. Stella's father."

"Yeah? What's Sinclair's deal?" I ask as we step into the room. The Maximoff's, the android, Stark, and Bird Brain are already there in civilian clothes not drenched in sweat.

Steve sighs. "That's a whole other story."


	3. Chapter 3

**Bucky's POV**

"Someday she's gonna have to stop being a brat and start using her vocal cords to get what she wants," I say as I click the joint stick from place to place on the x-box controller. I have to say, the development of video games might be even better than cellphones in this era. Pietro makes a noise that sounds like agreement but neither of us dare shift our eyes from the screen for fear of losing. After all the time's he's called me 'grandfather', I don't think his pride will recover from an eventual loss, and I will beat him within the near future.

"Bucky!" Steve cries at my insensitivity. I don't apologize because it's true. Back in our day the women did this all the time when they were pouting. Super girl, super sulking.

"Fuck Steve, I bet deep down she's just begging for someone to put her in her place," I growl. "You try that yet, Speedy?"

"You do not know Estelle, that would take a braver man than I. They again, perhaps you should be the one to try it. You are certainly more foolish—"

"Hey! With age comes wisdom."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, old man."

"All I'm saying is it couldn't hurt you to be a little nicer to her. Look at you, you're adjusting to the Avenger's great, you've been in the fast lane to recovery since Wakanda. She's going through an adjustment to,"

"And what, pray tell, would that adjustment be?" Stark's voice chimes in as I assume he enters the room.

"X-Men still will not release her file?" Pietro asks before Steve can respond.

"It appears that Doctor McCoy has pulled a Banner and disappeared off the map. I think he's somewhere in Europe, but it's not like we can torture him for the information," Stark says.

I snort. "Why can't we?"

" _You_ can't because _you_ haven't taken _your_ mental evaluation yet," Stark says snidely.

"Don't respond, Buck," Steve says before when I turn to send my most murderous glare at him.

Pietro barks with laughter. "Eyes on the road Grandfather! You drive like you are from Staten Island!" I have to decide which fractal of my pride is most important so I jerk back towards the screen without a second thought but I can still hear Steve release a sigh of relief. "Iron twat," I mutter underneath my breath.

"First of all, it's Iron Dick to you," Stark snarks. "Secondly, if we want her to talk I don't think torturing her former teammate and role model without even using the prospect of it as leverage against her is going to get her speaking again."

"We're not using torturing the Doctor as blackmail to get her to talk! What is wrong with you people?" Steve exclaims from his end of the couch.

"Any who," Stark continues, "that Professor X won't respond to any of my messages. Not sure if they're even making it to his academy but it looks like we're on our own with this one."

"You cannot hack into their system like Estelle got into yours?" Pietro asks.

"The Professor is real old school. Aside from medical equipment they keep away from computers and world web like it's the twentieth century. The computer she used wasn't even from this country, she was on the field in Canada at the time."

"Just our luck," Steve grumbles.

 _A few hours later…_

It's three in the morning and Stella is waiting at the elevator in a pair of running shorts and black t-shirt cut at the mid-drift. I think I heard Wanda the style "crop top" or something stupid like that. Whatever. Her hair is tied back in a high ponytail but small tendrils of hair are already out of place wisping around her face.

"Can't sleep?" I ask as I walk up behind her. Her head turn in my direction from it's angle of looking up at the ticking floor numbers reeling in neon lights overhead the elevator doors. She nods expressionlessly then looks back to the count.

I get closer noticing a sign forewarning of elevator maintenance tomorrow…no, today now. But it say elevators sixteen and twelve, and I check to see that this elevator is clearly marked nine and think no more about it.

"Me either," I say. "I always go to the gym late at night when I have nightmares, like I can sweat the paranoia and horrors that I made up in my head." It's easy to talk to her, even easier than the others in someway because I'm certain that she'll never respond or pass any discernible judgment. But I don't do it often, right now it's probably the lack of sleep that is spurring me to be so chatty. "Tonight it was mostly the thunder though," I say. "I've never met Thor, but do you think it could be him?"

She doesn't look at me, but she smiles faintly and I wonder briefly if she was fond of him. I've never heard anyone mention it. But the reaction's enough for me to be content with my obligatory interaction with her for the day.

The power flickers momentarily—so minutely that Estelle doesn't seem to notice as the numbers seemingly hiccupped in their movement up to the one-hundredth floor. It must've been but a blip I could pickup with the super soldier serum, so I try to shake the unease. I'll shake it off when I finally get to the gym.

Finally the elevator dings on our floor, someone is laughing inside. Out steps Pietro with another figure pressed to his side and his eyes seem to widen when they meet Estelle's.

"Peter!" the figure shrieks, peeking out fro his side. She's short and red headed with freckles scattered haphazardly atop her skin. "Introduce me to your friends!"

"Uh—of course! This is User Error, and the Winter…" he trails off as Stella shoves by them and immediately reaches her fingers towards what I assume is the "door close" button.

"Sorry Piet—ter! Not gonna wait another five minutes for the elevator," I say hastily stepping past them.

The pair stumbles back from the closing door and I see that I was right about Stella jamming down the close button, she hadn't even hit the button for the gym yet.

"At least he downgraded," I say with mock sympathy. I'm not sure if I should pity either of the estranged couple but it feels like the right thing to say at the moment.

Or maybe not. She rolls her eyes and pushes the button for the forty-ninth floor. The number roll slowly as we begin to descend. I study her features for lack of anything better to stare at. I know she can feel my eyes on her, but it's not like she's going to say anything about it while she's glaring holes into the fire safety sign above the floor buttons.

95…89…81… it's a Monday night so thankfully aside from Pietro's rendezvous we wont be stopping for any other night owls wandering that tower. 78…74… _click._

Everything goes black and the elevator drops to a screeching, jarring halt.

Fuck.


	4. Chapter 4

**Stella's POV**

This cannot be happening. I've spent approximately two minutes listening to Barnes' increasing heartbeat (225 beats precisely) as he slowly backed himself into the far corner of the elevator and slides to the ground. Thanks to my newly enhanced night vision and the slight eerie illumination coming from the red flashing emergency light, I can see that his eyes are squeezed shut and he's pulling his knees up to his chest. I know that this is so very not good for the Winter Soldier to be having a nervous breakdown but then again I know first hand that nervous breakdowns never occur at good times anyway. The bottom line is that this is not a flicker and I'm going to have to call for helps because Barnes is completely useless; if I stay in here alone with him for too long who knows what I might do to him if I lose control.

I tear my eyes away from the broken man on the floor who's now lowly muttering repetitively and open the panel for the emergency phone.

It's a short conversation that I spend glancing back and forth between Bucky and the metal wall panels surrounding us. He doesn't seem to have noticed me speaking—the way my unused voice rasps into the phone. I hang up dejectedly before turning my full attention to Buck who's now shaking violently. It's almost comical that after decades and decades of Hydra torture, Steve truly believed he could possibly be back to his old self after only a handful of years on the run. But this display is certainly not comical, and over the phone I had spared Bucky the indignity of describing the situation to the operator; I had told him that we were okay and that was most definitely a lie.

"Bucky…" I'm unwilling to talk to Bucky but I know that I have to get him calmed down before he hurts himself. I turn around facing away from him to compose myself, counting to ten slowly. Swallowing thickly I can feel my face change as Bucky's scent grows stronger without circulation in this elevator. He smells amazing, like a warm fire on a black winters night. I take a few deep breaths willing my body to suppress the primal instincts nagging at every bit of my being. Bucky, my teammate needs me. I need to protect him from both of us.

I turn myself back to try again. He's still crouching in the corner trembling violently and even if he's kind of a douchebag it breaks my heart a tiny bit. In my mind, the red light bathing his form creates parallel images of him being experimented on by Hydra and I'm unable to stave of the resulting cringe.

"Bucky," I say this time with more certainty. His eyes peek at me just above his knees through curtains of hair before lowering back down immediately. Quickly I bring my fingertips to right below my eyes, feeling for a vein out of place but the skin feels normal, meaning Barnes reaction has nothing to do with me. That's relieving.

"The operator said there was a mistake on the flyers about the elevator renovations. They've already cut the power and began work on the other elevator so there's no way they can turn this one back on without endangering the workers on the main elevator. We'll have to wait it out," I say. Bucky backs himself into the corner even more, folding himself into the space where the wall panels intersect at 90 degrees. It's frightening how one of the biggest men I have ever known can make himself unwittingly look so small, and that's when it dawns on me: Barnes has no idea who I am, he doesn't recognize my voice and in this moment, even with his super serum eyesight I probably look like a distorted red shadow person to him. I look like Hydra.

"Bucky…it's me, Estelle. Do you know who I am?"

"No you're not."

"Why don't you think I'm Estelle?"

Bucky doesn't even look up as he releases a broken sob. "Stella doesn't talk."

Fucking knew it. "I had to talk. You weren't going to be the one to call for help, were you?" No verbal response but a series of smaller sobs. "I'm going to come closer to you so you can smell me and see me better."

He continues shaking as I slowly cross the elevator in a few short steps trying to frighten him anymore. He's like a scared dog whose been left outside in a storm for far too long. Crouching down, I get a look at kneecaps and forearms that are so tightly wrapped around them. "Bucky… it's me. Look at me," I command.

He peeks back over his knees, I can see his eyes are wet and red-ringed, but he doesn't say anything once more. He flinches back as I raise my hand up so I pause, letting it hover in front of his wary line of sight. Hesitantly I move again, offering it to an animal so that it might pickup my scent. Bucky doesn't move away as I gently rest my fingertips on his arms and still once more. I have a bad idea that might calm him down but it's going to be a true test to my self-restraint and very masochistic, however the more I speak right now the more freaked out Barnes is going to get which means talking him down in not an option.

Slowly, I drag the pads of my fingers across his fleshy forearm and he watches them like a pendulum as he shakes beneath me. Closing my eyes I try to focus on two things: releasing the right amount of pheromones and keeping my face from shifting. Perks of being a predator include natural hunting techniques, such as releasing pheromones that lull the prey into a false sense of calmness and relaxation. By releasing strong pheromones I should be able to increase Bucky's Gamma-aminobutyric acid, which will reduce anxiety and fear as my preys neurotransmitters are overexcited.

Reopening my eyes, I dare to move a little further and lay my palm on the bend of his elbow. Leisurely, I rub my palm against his skin, and further up to the sleeve of his black t-shirt. I've gone over his shoulder when he starts to relax slightly under my touch, and I creep further gently brushing his neck before cupping his cheek. He stills, before his eyes flutter shut and he leans into my touch. It would be sweet really, if it weren't for the sound of rushing blood throbbing in my ears.

I use my free hand to lightly pry Buck's arms loose from his knees as a teardrop trickles from a closed eyelid, but he lets me open his arms and softly nudge his knees apart. It's just enough space for me to waddle closer to him, fitting snuggly between his bent legs, his knees fitting perfectly in the dips above my hips. Hesitantly, but on his own accord I feel him shift and wrap his arms around my waist pulling me closer to him as my knees slide forward against the cool steel flooring gently halting at his crotch. He looks up at me. In the dark I cannot see the color in his eyes but the red light reflects the saline harshly before I move my hand from his cheek and slide it into his long hair, grasping at the strands tenderly before he buries his face in my stomach and begins to sob once more.

Is this what an out of body experience feels like, I wonder. My movements have become completely mechanical as I sink back on my haunches moving Bucky's face into my chest. My left hand remains in his hair scratching his scalp comfortingly as my right arm wraps around his shoulders. The juxtaposition isn't lost on me; he's a drowning man clinging to a lifejacket, and I am an anaconda grooming my meal. But Bucky is a friend, not food. I repeat this phrase, friend not food, over and over in my head as stare above him at the railing hanging from the wall. I can feel my skin shifting and the room getting brighter as my night vision gets stronger but I stare ahead, afraid that if I spare the shuddering form in my embrace a single glance that I will catch sight of a vein protruding from his taught flesh.

Bucky says something and it pulls me out of myself. He's still shuddering, but I swallow and bring myself back in. I'm in the Avenger tower, in an elevator with my teammate James Buchannan Barnes. The veins recede again, and for a short moment I trust myself to open my eyes and pull back from Bucky enough to see his face as he sits more up right. "Stella…I'm sorry."

"What could you possibly have to be sorry for, Buck?" I can feel the shiver run down his spine transfer a surge of energy to me as I swallow it hard willing my eyes not to shift again unsure of how much Bucky can see.

"For…" his voice cracks and tears begin to spill. My heart aches knowing what it feels like to so desperately want to pull yourself together and yet remain unable to do so. "For this."

I cup both of my hands on his cheeks moving my thumbs back and forth like windshield wipers. "Are you afraid, Bucky?"

He nods up and down. God, he looks like a puppy. "Don't be."

He rushes forward once more and I pull him back to my chest, relieved that his eyes are away from my face. I rub his back as I speak, daring to rest my own cheek in his hair as the words come tumbling out. "You are Bucky Barnes and I am Stella Sinclair. We are avengers. The elevator we are sitting in is located in the Avengers Tower, Manhattan, New York City. This elevator is down for maintenance. It will turn back on soon." I say these things quietly for my benefit as much as his, trying to ground us and keep both of our demons at bay. His shaking ceases and I can hear his deep breathes loud and clear.

But then I distract myself with what Bucky needs, and hope if I keep talking to him aloud it will block out the sounds of rushing blood beneath his skin and his heartbeat that's thudding through his chest against myself. "No one is going to hurt you, Bucky. I'm here. I'll be here until the end, and I promise no matter what that I will always protect you. You are safe." I'm lying, because no creature with pumping blood will ever be safe from me. But I want it to be true, so desperately.


End file.
